InsideRIA: What Makes A User Experience Expert?

As with any successful, new, and vaguely-defined industry, the User Experience field has brought with it a lot of confusion, and created a lot of confused people. Confused clients, who know they need User Experience expertise but are unsure of how to get it, and a confused work-force, who has started labeling themselves as User Experience experts without really understanding it. This group is very well-intentioned, and either doesn’t know the difference between what they do and real User Experience work or are just as eager to learn as anyone else. Yet they know that talking about User Experience sells projects and so continue to talk it up.

What Makes A User Experience Expert?

They run discovery sessions.

They focus on user stories.

They do user research.

They’re often not visual designers.

Finally, they know that good User Experience is really the same thing as Customer Service.